India’s ruling Hindu-extremist BJP shock win in three of the four state election contests last Sunday can be put down to two simple reasons: The state of the economy and the lack of a credible opposition.
The Indian economy is booming as never before. Growth is strong; foreign reserves are high; the rupee has strengthened against the dollar; there are plenty more jobs. As former President Bill Clinton so memorably said in 1992, “it’s the economy, stupid!” Indians are no different from Americans; they are voting with their pockets. For them, the BJP government at the center is delivering the goods.
Indians also want change — and that desire inevitably translated into an anti-incumbent vote in Madhya Pradesh, where Congress has been in power for ten years, and in Rajasthan, where again it has held power for two terms. But the anti-Congress swing was as much motivated by national considerations as local ones. Although it is still the largest party in India, still controlling 11 states to the BJP’s now seven, it is constantly hemorrhaging support. It is not seen as pro-active and progressive, but as reactive and tied to the past. It is also still tainted with corruption, has too many splinter groups, and its leader Sonia Gandhi is a focus of contention as much as unity. All this makes for a dinosaur image — hard to sell to the voters.
The one thing — thankfully — that the BJP’S successes cannot be put down to this time is communal conflict. In state election in Gujarat a year ago, the local BJP deliberately stirred up anti-Muslim sentiments to win Hindu votes. In the three months before the election over 1,000 people were killed in communal violence, mostly Muslims. Sickeningly the man behind it, Narendra Modi, won handsomely.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee may now be urged to bring forward next year’s general elections to cash in on the party’s evident popularity. That would be a tremendous gamble. The BJP picked up the anti-incumbency vote in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh because it was the established opposition there. Had the elections been held elsewhere, the outcome might have been very different. The Indian electorate is very mature; it votes for different things in different places. While there will be those in the BJP urging Vajpayee to seize the moment, others will therefore urge caution. Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has already made it clear that there should be no early national polls.
Advani, however, has an added incentive for not wanting an early contest. Sunday’s elections will strengthen the BJP’s more pragmatic wing led by Prime Minister Vajpayee at the expense of the hard-line nationalist elements which Advani leads.
That shift may bring little comfort to all who see the BJP as a force for division and conflict in India, but it is the only crumb of comfort available.
